Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg’s manifesto wants us to despair

Book review: The family book links our burned-out mental health and our burned-out planet

Sun, Mar 8, 2020, 06:00

Abi Andrews

Greta Thunberg seems to intuitively understand the power of social media. Photograph: Anders Hellberg

In August 2018, a girl with plaits sat on a blue cushion outside the Swedish houses of parliament holding a sign that said “skolstrejk för klimatet” – our world has not been the same since. The global school strike movement started on Greta Thunberg’s second day of protest, when a boy named Mayson sat down next to her. From then on, she has been joined by tens of thousands of other children all around the world.

Written primarily by Greta Thunberg’s mother, Malena Ernman, with sections by her father, Svante, and younger sister, Beata, Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet is an unflinching look at both her family cosmos and the civilisation that it is embedded within.